FINAL GIRL explores the slasher flicks of the '70s and '80s...and all the other horror movies I feel like talking about, too. This is life on the EDGE, so beware yon spoilers!

Mar 13, 2006

What could've been

I saw the 2002 disaster Halloween: Resurrection for the first time last October, during my Halloween marathon, aka Experiment in Masochism 2. If you weren't around Final Girl then, head right here to read my immediate reaction to that movie, the 8th tale in the saga of Michael Myers. HINT: I was ragin'. 'Roid ragin', but without the 'roids.

Yeah, it was a silly movie, it was a bad movie...but it could've been cheesy fun, like, say, Jason X. I strongly feel that had it ended with Halloween H2O, the series could've died with a little dignity intact. At the film's end, Laurie Strode beheaded Michael Myers, and that should've been that. Sister killing brother, game over after 20 long years. In a misguided attempt to squeeze a few more coins from Michael's teats, however, someone out in Hollywoodlandville came up with a simply brilliant idea: what if Laurie didn't behead Michael? What if it was someone else? "Yeah! Awesome! Michael switched clothes with some poor sap and he gets his head chopped off! Sweet. So. Smart. And plausible! Then we'll kill off Laurie in the first 15 minutes of Halloween: Resurrection in a totally ludicrous fashion- we'll give her a really indignant death after 25 years. Then we'll bring in celebrities like Tyra Banks and Busta Rhymes, and we'll create a plot about reality TV and the internet because kids love celebrities and the internet. Hollywood rules!"

Do you see why I was so full of burning hot anger? In fact, just thinking about it just...excuse me. I need to go do some Tantric breathing or something.

The only reason I'd go back to watch Halloween: Resurrection now is to see Katee Sackhoff, who stars as Starbuck on the current incarnation of Battlestar Galactica series. At the moment, I'm quite frankly a little obsessed with that show. Otherwise, the movie can completely, 100%-ly kiss my ass. Although I do dearly love some of these alternate titles for the movie, according to imdb.com:

-Hall8ween (exactly how does one pronounce that? anything with "ate ween" in the title is just naughty)-Halloween H2K: Evil Never Dies-Halloween: The Homecomingand my personal favorite, quite possibly the worst movie title ever:-Halloween: MichaelMyers.com

I told ya, kids love the internet!

While flipping through the back issue bin at my local comic shop recently, I came across Halloween III: The Devil's Eyes, a 2001 book from Chaos Comics. I picked it up to check it out, and I thought it was worth mentioning here as it's an adaptation of a screenplay treatment...in other words, it's the Halloween: Resurrection that could've been. Whether it's better than what made it to the screen is a tough call; it's just a comic book, after all, and it would be much different to see the story played out in flesh and blood. The plot is drastically different than the MichaelMyers.com crap, and that, at least, is good.

MichaelMyers.com- oh, man. That's gonna crack me up for a good long while.

The Devil's Eyes (written by Phil Nutman, pencilled by Justiniano, inked by Walden Wong) picks up right after the events of Halloween H2O. At an accident scene, the police have found a headless body burned beyond recognition. Both the corpse's head and Laurie Strode are missing from the scene, but the police believe that the body belongs to Michael Myers.

Meanwhile, poor little Tommy Doyle (the kid Laurie was babysitting in the original Halloween) is all grown up and is now a patient at Smith's Grove Sanitarium himself.

Apparently, in earlier issues, there was a church fire that resulted in the death of Sheriff Brackett and the authorities believe Tommy was responsible. Tommy is unconvinced that Myers is really dead and escapes from Smith's Grove. He heads back to Haddonfield, where he meets up with Lindsey Wallace (his movie-watching buddy from Halloween), who's now a reporter living in Chicago. She's back in Haddonfield to write the story of Michael Myers, hoping she can put the nightmare behind her once and for all.

It would seem that Tommy's right, though- Michael Myers isn't dead! Eyyyagh! Who else would put the bodies of Laurie's teenage friends Annie, Lynda, and Bob on display on a bed upstairs in Lindsey's old house? And isn't that a nice candle holder?

Yup, Michael's back, and he battles Tommy and Lindsey to near death. They all end up back at the old abandoned Myers house where Lindsey jabs Michael in the eye with something pointy while Tommy shoots him in the back. They pull off Michael's mask to reveal...

...Laurie Strode. She really did kill Michael at the end of H20, and now she's using his head as a decorative votive holder and picking up where he left off. What the f indeed, Tommy. What the f, indeed.

At the book's end, Laurie is incarcerated at Smith's Grove. Her shrink explains to Lindsey that Laurie suffers from "Psychotic Personality Transference", meaning she needed to relive the events of October 31, 1978 over and over again. She killed Michael and took his head as a trophy, but couldn't live without the idea of Michael- so she became him. Straight-up mental illness. Lindsey questions that assessment, though- is it just insanity, or is it something more? You know, like pure evil and stuff? Either way, Laurie's a bonafide cuckoo psycho nutjob at the end of it all, staring off into space just like Michael all those years ago...

So there you go. No karate-choppin' Busta Rhymes, no Tyra Banks, no internet. No...heeheehee...MichaelMyers.com. Is The Devil's Eyes a better ending to the saga than Halloween: Resurrection? Probably, although I don't know if I buy Laurie-as-psycho-killer. She was a pretty normal teenager up until Michael Myers re-entered her life and killed all her friends. I think she was treated realistically by Kevin Williamson and Co. for Halloween: H2O. She was alcoholic, addicted to prescription drugs, and neurotic. She hadn't gotten over the events of Halloween night, but she could have, had she sought treatment. She was a troubled, loving mother, not a mere blink away from becoming a murderous psycho. Ah well. At least in the comic she lives.

5 comments:

The comic book is 100% better on all counts. Though, true, it is a stretch that Laurie Strode would become the killer (and all that Freudian psychobabble mumbojumbo is filler for people who need explanations handed down to them sweetly, on platters trimmed with lace), it's still better than - ahem - MichaelMyers.com.

If he was on a fucking website, it'd be easy to survive those movies. Just don't click on that fuckin website! Just don't! And now you're safe.

Anyway, great post. I love how you integrated the comic art with your writing - I would've never known about the comic otherwise.

HEADED TO DALLAS: Per Variety, 20th Century Fox's big-screen version of CBS' Dallas picking up steam with John Travolta being eyed to play J.R. Ewing, Jennifer Lopez in the role of Sue Ellen Ewing, Owen Wilson as Bobby Ewing and Shirley MacLaine playing Miss Ellie Ewing.

Thanks, Brennon. I think you're right- the book is better than the movie.

But if MichaelMyers.com was a popup ad- could you RESIST?! Think of all the stupid people he;d get to kill.

Chadwick- I've been eyeing those F13 books in the shops, but damn...Avatar books are so pricy! I hope they issue a trade or something. Jason vs Jason X sounds impossible...and impossibly FUN! Ahahahaaa! Oh, my sides.

I don't even want to tell you what that DALLAS news has done to me. My blood pressure...ah! Through the roof!

Making a Dallas movie could be fun. COULD be. But what the fuck is with that cast list?!!?! The only name I'm happy to see there- the only one that makes sense- is Shirley Maclaine. She's perfect for the role of Miss Ellie. I love her.

But JOHN TRAVOLTA? I fucking loathe John Travolta, and as JR? You've gotta be kidding me. He ain't fit to spit-shine Larry Hagman's shoes!

I think I'm the only person who can't stand Owen Wilson, but there you go. Wrong wrong wrong. And Jennifer Lopez...wha...can't..type...can't see..through tears...of...rage...

Like I said, a movie could be fun, althought it'll never capture all the fun of the show. But that cast is just so awful it makes me want to go back in time and abort myself.